


Soulmate

by Ad_Absurdum



Series: Imaginary Fragrances [5]
Category: Imaginary Authors (Perfume House)
Genre: F/M, Fate & Destiny, Gen, Imaginary Fragrance, Original work - Freeform, Shooting Stars, Soulmates, Synchronicities, and wishing upon them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-12 07:31:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17463254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ad_Absurdum/pseuds/Ad_Absurdum
Summary: Notes:moonstone, caramel, night air, green tea, wild roseWhen to wear:Memo from the Nose:Josh, there's something odd going on with this. Despite adding the same ingredients, in the same quantities, the scent is different each time. It also smells different to different people. My assistant claims it smells of pineapple of all things. The lab staff detect in turns: patchouli, aniseed, lavender, tonka, vanilla and on one occasion, I quote, "tears and regret". I think we need to be careful how we market this one. I just may have created a monster.





	Soulmate

**Author's Note:**

> _The Nose_ is the industry nickname for the person who is actually responsible for creating perfume compositions.

_"Do the stars look different tonight?"_

It was the middle of the shooting stars season and the man sitting in a deck-chair in front of his house wondered why the night sky seemed not quite the same as the day before.

 _"Huh, maybe too many stars have fallen already and the holes are showing,"_ he joked to himself.

It was past two in the morning, the man's wife was long asleep, but he still stayed up. Recently he had trouble sleeping anyway and staying awake at all hours of the night seemed less bothersome than tossing and turning in his bed. Besides, he simply liked looking at the stars, very much so. He would gladly share this hobby with his wife, but she wasn't really interested in such things. Today he asked her again to join him and watch the light trails that the shooting stars left in their wake (and maybe wish upon them), but she just looked at him like he was five years old and said,

"You're being slightly weird with all that star-watching you've been doing lately, you know? And besides, I've got work tomorrow morning. When you decide to come to bed, try not to wake me up, all right?"

And so the man sat here alone, pondering his wife's words.

Was he being weird? He didn't think so. Well, all right, he sometimes (often) felt that even the words coming out of his mouth sounded odd to other people. Maybe a little too fanciful, his opinions slightly out-of-this-world, his feelings - when he spoke about them - a bit too untainted by anger or envy or greed.

Most of the time he didn't care if people called him weird. It was usually in jest anyway and he never took offence to it. But when his own wife started calling him that and didn't seem to be joking... Or like it at all...

Funny because before they got married she didn't mind. Or at least she didn't show it. She just sometimes called him an oddball, but she always used to smile when saying that. He literally could feel the affection in her voice.

When did that change?

Their wedding was just a little over a year ago; was it possible they'd become tired of each other already?

He frowned, searching his feelings. He still loved his wife, on that he was clear. Well, reasonably clear. However, it was just possible he loved her slightly less than he used to. He certainly stopped believing she was his soulmate (and that was another thing that earned him the 'weirdo' label. He preferred to think it was the romantic in him, but he did realise his belief in soulmates was not the most common one around. To say it mildly).

That had actually been painful. He remembered one day, five or six months into their marriage, he suddenly realised he and his love no longer spoke the same language and they no longer understood each other without words (did they ever?). The connection he always felt, or at least thought he felt, was simply no longer there.

The man sighed and closed his eyes, the action causing him to miss the sight of a particularly bright shooting star. It raced through the sky, leaving a blazing trail that was visible for at least ten seconds before it disappeared.

 _"I should stop wallowing in what-was and what-could-be,"_ the man thought. _"Time to focus on here and now. Christ, not everyone is still all lovey-dovey once they get married. In fact... no one is."_

He opened his eyes, a bit surprised by this revelation. But it was true. You couldn't stay in those first stages of being so-in-love-you-were-practically-drunk forever. The endorphin high had to end some day and that day had obviously already come for him and his wife. And that was okay. That was life. That was normal.

Even if for his best friend that 'in love' phase seemed to last for the past eight years. And was still going strong to this day, after he and his girlfriend finally got married.

The man wasn't bitter, not at all. In fact, he wished them all the best. It was clear to him that his friend and his now-wife were soulmates, even if he never actually voiced it to either of them. He'd always wondered, though, if it would ever be possible for him to have the same kind of relationship with anyone.

He now supposed the answer was 'no'.

For a moment the man felt like crying, but he shook it off and took a deep breath.

_"Focus on here and now."_

He raised his eyes to yet another shooting star and smiled faintly. The sight of the night sky somehow brought him peace.

There was another shooting star. And then another and another. The man couldn't help but remember a time long gone, himself as a child watching a meteor shower with his grandma, and her telling him that when he made a wish, seeing a shooting star, it would definitely come true. So he should be very careful what he wished for.

The man sat up a little straighter and spoke.

"I'd like to meet my soulmate, please. If there's one for me..."

He laughed a little at himself, but well... there was nobody here to hear his weirdness.

The man got more comfortable in his deck-chair, pulled his jacket and blanket closer around himself (the nights were still cold) and stopped thinking of anything. He just watched the stars, letting his imagination escape to those distant suns and then be carried away on meteor trails burning slashes in the Earth's atmosphere.

One particular meteor caught his attention. Its trail was unusually bright and long-lasting. In fact, it had been fifteen seconds already and it wasn't disappearing. Instead it became brighter and brighter and was closer and closer and the man had a brief thought that maybe it was going to drop right where he was sitting and he should run for his life, but he just couldn't make himself to move.

And then that little ball of fire was right in front of him (he'd actually thought it would be bigger if it was going to be the reason for his untimely demise) and he forgot how to breathe, watching in wonder how its flames danced and twinned, the golds and reds, blues and pinks blending, separating, reaching for him, blending into him, going right for his heart to enclose it in a protective embrace and wake it up.

* * *

The man tried to stretch and immediately felt a muscle in his neck spasm. He hissed in pain and opened his eyes, feeling unusually cold.

The sun was shining, the birds were singing and the sporadic gusts of early April wind were indeed slightly chilly.

The man blinked and for a moment couldn't understand why he was outside, sprawled on a deck-chair instead of his own bed. Yesterday he...

Oh, right. Yesterday he watched the shooting stars and must have dozed off.

He sneezed. Damn, he hoped he wasn't catching a cold.

He sneezed again. Damn, _damn_. He had work to do today. In fact he had his schedule full for the next three weeks. If he got ill now, his boss was going to maim him.

The man rubbed his chest, feeling a curious warmth inside. Onset of a fever?

He looked at his watch and nearly had a heart attack. It was 9:11 and he was supposed to be at the office by 9:30. His boss was definitely going to maim him and then probably kill him. But not before he got all of his work done.

He sprang from the chair and ran inside the house. Good thing he took a shower last evening. If he skipped everything except for the change of clothes, he might even be on time.

* * *

On the other side of the globe a woman sleeping soundly in the comfort of her bed, sneezed suddenly. This of course woke her up and she sighed, not happy at all with this turn of events. The drapes were tightly closed, the bedroom was pitch-dark, so she reluctantly opened her eyes to see the time. With a bit of luck, the alarm clock would go off in a few minutes anyway. Maybe she could get a head start on her morning for once.

The clock on her bedside table showed 01:11 in bright blue digits. She winced and closed her eyes again in resignation.

This was ridiculous. She kept waking up at really weird hours those nights. Yesterday it was 02:22, before that 01:11 again, occasionally 03:33, 04:44 or 05:55 for variety. What the hell was up with that?

She sneezed again. Shit, she hoped it wasn't a cold.

"Organism," she muttered at her body. "Please let's not get sick right now, okay? We need to go to work and earn money for that stupid trip we thought up last year. The plane tickets are already booked. Weird thing they had discount for October flights back in February, eh?"

She sighed, nodding off. "We could have chosen a trip somewhere closer. Italy or something. But no, it had to be the other side of the bloody world. Anyway, just don't get ill. I'll give you vitamin C tomorrow, all right?"

She fell asleep.

A pendant she recently bought on a whim (well, it was pretty and at the time she had a vague idea she could maybe go back to her childhood hobby of collecting rocks), that was lying on her bedside table, right next to the clock, glowed briefly. You could almost miss it if you weren't looking carefully, but the two crystals bound together with a golden wire, lit up with tiny pink and red and green flames.

When the woman was going to wear it the next day, the flames would reach for her heart, infuse it with light and wake it up.


End file.
